How Social Movements Can Save Democracy. Donatella della Porta
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focusing on the Great Recession, I have selected for each chapter what could be considered as ‘most different’ cases, in order to point especially at similarities in the mechanisms and dynamics of movement-based democratic innovations. Methodologically, I aim to go beyond most of the previously mentioned case studies and small-N comparisons of similar cases. A step I consider important at this stage in comparative research is to move beyond the analyses that trace dissimilarities between similar types, and look instead for similarities in the way in which different cases developed. Following McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly’s Dynamics of Contention (2001), as well as della Porta and Keating’s Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences (2008), I will build my theorization in two steps, by first analysing a most paradigmatic case of the specific democratic innovation developed from within anti-austerity protests in Europe that I address in each chapter, and then assessing the robustness of the explanations in a few additional cases.
The empirical evidence comes in part from fieldwork conducted during comparative research projects carried out at the Center on Social Movement Studies (Cosmos) at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, mainly using in-depth interviews and document analysis. Fieldwork has been carried out on the analysed cases in Iceland, Italy, Catalonia, Scotland and Spain (see della Porta, Andretta et al. 2016; della Porta, Fernández et al. 2017; della Porta, O’Connor et al. 2017a, 2017b), while the Irish and the Bolivian cases are based on the analysis of existing literature. In all cases, I will rely on comparative historical analysis. As Daniel Ritter (2014, 107) has noted, most often:
the objective is not to discover new facts, but to provide a new interpretation with the help of ‘old’ evidence. As a consequence, comparative historical researchers depend especially on the meticulous work done by historians and area specialists, but also on those produced by sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, psychologists, diplomats, and journalists. As a rule of thumb, anything written from a social scientific or professional perspective could constitute evidence. The comparative historical scholar’s task is in part to evaluate the credentials of other authors, and thus the credibility of the sources.
Indeed, following Ritter’s lead, I used three categories of secondary sources: historical accounts of a country, texts focusing specifically on the research topic, and texts dealing more specifically with factors considered as causally relevant (Ritter 2014, 108).
The second chapter addresses forms of citizens’ participation in constitution-making: what has been defined as crowd-sourced constitutional processes, focusing upon constitutional processes that explicitly aim at involving citizens in constitution-making. Constitutions are a fundamental element of the stable set of political opportunities that are often considered as particularly influential in defining the conditions for contentious politics, their characteristics and outcomes. In fact, in particular during transitions to democracy, participation by social movements promotes constitutions that not only are more open to claims from below, but also open up more channels of political participation. Besides in transitions to democracy, social movements contribute to creating constitutional moments, that in their forms and contents are resonant with their participatory and deliberative visions. If social movement studies have rarely addressed their constitutional effects, constitution-making has long moved out of the area of sociological inquiry altogether. As a time of ‘constitutional acceleration’ has been noted (and in part at least connected to the economic crisis), a recent wave of attention to constitutions has focused in particular on issues of legitimation through citizens’ participation. Connecting this research to the study of contentious politics, the chapter addresses the constitutive powers of movements in terms of their impact upon the constitutional process by looking at cases of so-called crowd-sourced constitutional processes – especially the Icelandic one, but also the Irish.
The third chapter analyses the role of social movements as promoters of or main actors in direct democracy, with particular attention to referendums from below, defined as cases in which social movements have been promoters or main actors in the process. While there are very different types of referendums, some of which are used as an instrument of the elites rather than of challengers, there are several potential linkages between referendum politics and contentious politics. In recent times, several important referendums took place in Europe (and beyond) with broad participation of citizens not only in the electoral moment but also in the communication campaign that preceded it. In these cases, social movements affected the organizational forms, repertoire of action and framing of the issues at stake, opening up participatory and deliberative spaces. The chapter will combine insights from social movement studies and studies on direct democracy to investigate under which conditions social movements’ mobilization in institutions of direct democracy can improve their inclusive and deliberative qualities. The cases chosen as illustrations are of highly participated referendums: against the privatization of water supply in Italy, on Scottish independence, and for Catalonian independence.
The fourth chapter looks at movement parties, defined by their tight connections with social movements, as potential innovators in party systems and electoral politics. Movement parties emerge as a sort of hybrid between movements and parties, participating in protest campaigns, but also acting in the electoral arena. As social movements are networks of organizations and individuals, movement parties can be considered as part of them, as testified by overlapping memberships as well as organizational and action links. Additionally, even if in different formats, they aim at integrating the movement constituencies within their organizations, representing movements’ claims and appealing to movements’ identities. Even if using (also) an electoral logic, they tend to be supportive of protest, participating in campaigns together with other movement organizations. Movement parties developing from within contemporary progressive social movements can therefore be expected not only to represent claims for social justice and ‘real’ democracy, but also to innovate their organizational models and action strategies in more participatory and deliberative democratic directions. While parties are important for movements and vice versa, the literature on relations between the two is at best sparse as research on parties moved away from concerns with the relations between parties and society, focusing on parties within institutions, and social movement studies mainly framed them as a social phenomenon, whose political aspects had to be located outside of political institutions. Referring to social movement studies but also party studies, the chapter develops some main expectations about the conditions for the rise and success of movement parties, with special attention to their potential for democratic innovation. In this endeavour, the Spanish Podemos is taken as a main case, with Bolivian MAS providing for a comparative perspective.
In the concluding chapter, I will summarize first the analysis of democratic innovations such as crowd-sourced constitutionalism, referendums from below and movement parties. Second, I will review some of the empirical evidence, research results and arguments presented in the three previous chapters in the light of their contributions to the main fields of knowledge in the social sciences: social movement studies (especially social movement outcomes) and empirical theories of democracy (especially democratic changes). Stressing the importance of concepts such as eventful protest and critical junctures, I will conclude with some reflections on moments of crisis as intense times, opening up challenges and opportunities.
1 1. As Forst noted (2019), ‘If our critique of false notions of progress is situated and not merely abstract and empty, we also argue for progress, both in theory and in practice, because overcoming false progress is true progress. Being against progress, because one is motivated by an account of non-domination or emancipation, is also to be for it.’
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